C35: Finding the Trail

To be honest, Shang Xia was trying his luck.

He was more than ready to tear off all pretense with the Lightning Bird for the sake of getting it to help him. However, he seemed to have underestimated the Lightning Bird's intelligence and desire to break through.

Releasing his Yin Yang Essence Qi, the Lightning Bird soon gained its freedom. Rising into the air, it didn't fly away immediately. Instead, it circled the air above Shang Xia.

Realizing that it wouldn't be able to obtain the other half easily, it shot into the skies, hoping to quickly discover traces of the convoy.

As Shang Xia left under Yuan Zilu's orders, he had no idea what happened after.

From the looks of it, the members of the Tongyou Peak failed to reinforce them in time. Otherwise, they wouldn't have left stuff like silver essence on the ground.

In order to trade with Shang Xia, Yan Ming wanted to give him her low-grade weapons and fifty pieces of silver essence!

Shang Xia might have rejected her easily and scoffed at her offer, but fifty pieces of silver essence wasn't a small amount in the Tongyou Peak!

Many disciples at the Martial Extremity Realm wouldn't be able to take out so much money anyway!

For ordinary cultivators in the Martial Realm, they would consider themselves lucky if they had three to five pieces of silver essence. They would use copper boards as their currency of choice instead.

Since they buried their money in the ground, there was definitely some sort of special meaning behind their actions.

On the off chance that the outer disciples weren't killed, they wouldn't have gotten far with their cultivation.

More than a dozen Embroidered Cloud Carriages were robbed and sixteen disciples who were about to enter the inner division disappeared. There were the disciples of the Protection Division too! No matter how slow they were at reacting, the Tongyou Peak should be in complete chaos at the moment.

If anyone managed to rescue them, they would have returned for their stuff. After all, disciples who hadn't broken through to the Martial Realm would never be able to give up on treasures like that!

Sighing slightly, Shang Xia hoped that nothing serious happened in the Tongyou Peak.

Since the members of the Wind Swallow Race could openly plunder resources, Shang Xia could tell that trouble was definitely brewing at the Tongyou Peak.

It was too late to panic. Regardless, he wouldn't be able to go head to head with the Wind Swallow Race alone. He could only wait patiently for the Lightning Bird to return.

.

The only other thing he could think about was the blood red tablet in his sea of consciousness. Even if he knew that he wouldn't be able to gain anything useful from it, he knew that it contained a massive secret. Uncovering the secret the best he could, he could only find two uses for it.

One was to improve his secret art, the other was to obtain the most optimal recipe from whatever half baked recipe he was given.

Other than the two times it worked, it didn't react in the slightest.

Those novels told amazing legends of how cultivators transmigrated and received a special guide or an invincible system… It helped them grow strong extremely quickly and turn into the main character of the story… Those characters either had insane plot armor or freakish help given from the heavens…

Look at me! What the fuck is this?!

All he got was a damn tablet that stood in the middle of nowhere. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't do anything with it!

According to Shang Xia, the blood red tablet was probably ranked extremely high in the list of 'most useless treasures after transmigrating'.

Was there even a need to mention how one face was cracked?! If he managed to dig out a way to use the blood red tablet, it might crack even more!

Once all four faces of the tablet cracked, it was probably time for it to shatter…

That wasn't a god-given talent or system… That was a goddamn time bomb!

Shang Xia racked his brains but came up with nothing.

The only time it reacted was during the eruption of the Origin Tide. It was one of the reasons Shang Xia decided to go deeper. Deep in his heart, he thought of an idea of repairing the blood red tablet with the help of the Origin Tide. From the looks of it, he overestimated himself.

When his mind nearly broke down in the Origin Tide, the tablet remained completely motionless! It might not have helped him, but looking at things from another point of view, the tablet was strong enough to withstand the eruption. It had to be hiding even more secrets.

Naturally, he would be unable to uncover anything with his low cultivation level.

"Let's just hope that the tablet doesn't destroy itself before I grow stronger…" Shang Xia sighed in his heart.

He was brought back to reality by sounds of chirping and quickly discovered that his surroundings were changing again.

Dark clouds gathered in the skies, but a warm breeze swept through the lands.

Raising his head, Shang Xia saw the Lightning Bird circling around him with Yan Ni'er following closely behind it.

Looking closely, he realized that Yan Ni'er's speed had increased by quite a bit.

Even though it was slower than the Lightning Bird, it was much faster than when it attacked the convoy. If it could fly so quickly then, Shang Xia wouldn't have been able to capture it!

The lightning bath it enjoyed recently definitely allowed it to improve significantly.

… Was he going to nurture another Lightning Bird?

Shang Xia thought of the possibility, but his thoughts soon returned to the Lightning Bird. For it to return so quickly, it might have found traces of the other disciples!

Holding caution towards the bird that annoyed him since the raid on the convoy, Shang Xia was extremely suspicious of it. His instincts told him otherwise.

Choosing to take another route to enter the hidden valley, he crawled up one of the wall faces to avoid detection. When he arrived at the top, he peeped downwards only to be greeted with a sorry sight.

Dozens of disciples were tied up, and they were squatting in a circle with their backs against each other.